


For Once in My Life

by boomerbird10



Series: Tiva/Tivali Drabbles [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Cooking in the kitchen fluff, Dancing to Sinatra fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24242272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomerbird10/pseuds/boomerbird10
Summary: Cooking together with wine, music, and only half dressed... life in Paris, reunited at last, isn't half bad.
Relationships: Ziva David/Anthony DiNozzo
Series: Tiva/Tivali Drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749793
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	For Once in My Life

"We should do something on Friday night, Ziva," Tony suggests out of the blue one day.

"Why this Friday specifically? Do we have an anniversary that I have forgotten?" Ziva wants to know. They have a lot of them, because they don't take anything for granted these days. They like to memorialize the day they met, the day Ziva came home for good, the day Ziva was liberated from Somalia, the day they moved from their old flat to a bigger one. Then, of course, there are the usual excuses to celebrate: birthdays, their wedding anniversary, any and all major holidays—French, American, _and_ Israeli.

Basically, they find it absolutely necessary to honor this second (third, fourth) chance at happiness whenever they can.

"Not that I can think of. It's just that Tali's going to be sleeping over at Violette's house then, and we so rarely get to do things just the two of us."

"What did you have in mind?"

Their eyes meet, and they share feral grins that make it very clear just what they're both thinking. They are who they are

What they're both thinking is sex somewhere other than behind the closed door of their bedroom. Somewhere exciting. Somewhere they can spice it up.

Somewhere like the living room sofa.

* * *

They do exactly as they planned, and it's glorious.

Afterwards, they lounge lazily on the sofa, tangled comfortably together to avoid falling off, and they talk about nothing important. The pull to have real adult conversation—which honestly just means swearing—is entirely too strong, and for once, they don't even turn on a movie. They just chat, and hold onto one another, and salute these happy days.

Eventually, Tony's stomach growls loudly enough that Ziva can feel its vibrations, though, and she laughs. "There is a bear inside of you and he is not happy," she says in amusement. "Perhaps we should feed him."

She carefully sits up, thinking idly that they really need a larger sofa. They're not quite as young or quite as nimble as they used to be.

"I think the bear wants your famous spaghetti," Tony agrees, trying as always to coax her into cooking his favorite things.

He usually succeeds.

"The bear may have it, if the bear helps. Up you get, Tony."

"Alright, alright." With a groan, Tony sits up, but he's less successful than Ziva at balancing, and he falls to the floor with a yelp.

Ziva, giggling, leaves him there, grabbing an item or two of clothing to put on as she heads for the kitchen.

* * *

By the time they start cooking, they have almost an entire outfit on between them. Tony ends up in his own pants, bare-chested and ready to wield a pasta strainer when necessary. Ziva ends up in Tony's misbuttoned shirt, bare-legged and with too-long sleeves rolled up to her elbows.

Ziva starts to delegate tasks; Tony is decent at following directions but is, at best, an unimaginative chef with a tendency to spend so much time sampling his projects that he gets distracted and burns them. She sets him chopping up vegetables to begin with. "You're like a drill sergeant," he complains teasingly. "All work and no play."

"I am not certain we should play when you have a knife in hand, Tony," she replies, smirking. "You are not as proficient as I am." It's little more than a taunt, a challenge—she knows exactly how to motivate him.

"We'll see about that."

Of course, it hasn't been five minutes before he gets distracted by the way her breasts look in _his_ shirt and he narrowly avoids cutting his own finger.

Then, snorting, Ziva decides to downgrade his status from sous chef to… waiter. "You cannot be trusted," she informs him, but she pats his chest in consolation after confiscating the knife. "Maybe you can open some wine for us and put on music while I finish the carrots."

Tony mutters something under his breath about how he's not quite as much of a clown as she thinks he is, but he's hiding a smile, and he kisses her temple before ambling off to choose a bottle. By the time he's back, Ziva is nearly done with the chopping.

"Ever thought about being a chef?" Tony asks curiously, pulling two wine glasses from the top shelf of a cabinet and opening the wine to be poured. "You're really good at it."

"Ah, well, not every hobby is well-suited to be a career, but thank you." The smile she sends his way is easy, brilliant, relaxed—like all her smiles are these days.

Tony thinks all the time about how dazzlingly Ziva's sun shines now that the clouds are gone; she's a brighter light than perhaps anyone else he knows except Tali, who certainly inherited it from Ziva anyway.

He hands her a glass of wine and holds up his own. "Cheers," he begins, "to wine, and your spaghetti, and jazz, and all the dancing we're about to do, and most importantly… cheers to you, my brilliant but terrifying wife." She is, after all, still holding a potential murder weapon.

Ziva laughs and clinks his glass. "Cheers," she agrees, and after she takes a sip, she sets down the knife and leans in to kiss him.

The kiss tastes like pinot noir and kid-free Friday nights and all the bliss of a normal life.

* * *

By the time the sauce is simmering and the noodles are boiling, Tony and Ziva have had two and a half glasses of wine each, and they're both in distinctly pleasant moods.

They've been listening to Frank Sinatra's greatest hits, getting increasingly into dancing around the kitchen with each song and each sip of red. Tony sends Ziva into a fit of hysterical laughter when he steals the sauce spoon and uses it as a microphone, not caring at all that he's splattering bits of tomato all around as he spins and sings.

(They can clean the kitchen later, and besides, they're very used to messes, raising an enthusiastic six-year-old as they are.)

Tony puts the spoon back in the sauce and snatches Ziva's hand, spinning her into his chest and initiating a dance that she just can't say no to. He's in such a good mood—if she wasn't already feeling so nice herself, it would be infectious anyway. As it is, she laughs helplessly, feeling hopelessly smitten as they swing dance.

"For once I can say," Tony sings, "this is mine, you can't take it!" He dips Ziva backwards and her hair almost ends up in the spaghetti. (They might need a bigger kitchen but that couldn't be of less consequence now.)

"As long as I know I have love we can make it," Ziva sings back, kissing her husband between lines to distract him so she can tickle his sides and make his dance moves falter with laughter.

He bounces back quickly, though, spinning them faster as they chuckle together. "For once in my life, I've got someone," he sings, louder. "Yeah, for once in my life, I found someone…"

"For once in my life, I've got someone who needs me!" They finish together at a forte, ending with a kiss that's mostly just giggling into each other's lips.

The neighbors will complain tomorrow about the mildly obnoxious noise, but with bellies full of spaghetti and hearts full of music and love, Tony and Ziva won't care a bit.


End file.
